My Favorite Things About Wedding Planning

I realized I’ve posted a lot about personal frustrations, and a lot about fairly run-of-the-mill planning stuff, but very little about what I’ve LOVED about planning.

Sums up how I’ve felt about a lot of planning. | Image via Easy Weddings

And you may remember from one of my early posts—I’m kinda dreading the wedding. I might be a bit of the anti-bride, at least for someone having a pretty traditional wedding. But that doesn’t mean I’m not having fun. In fact, some parts of wedding planning are super fun.

1. Getting RSVPs. Our RSVPs have been flooding in, and so many people have left sweet notes and funny doodles on the cards—it’s super touching. And it’s SO nice to get stuff in the mail that isn’t bills, flyers, or 14 copies of the Oriental Trading Company wedding catalog. Seriously. How did they FIND me?

2. Dancing with Mr. W. It’s a little thing, but as we’ve been going over wedding songs, whenever we hear one that COULD work, we dance together. Half the time, the puppy joins us and chaos ensues. We’ve narrowed down the list to about three songs, spent a lot of evenings dancing, and had a blast. Even though he’s a terrible dancer.

3. Tasting all the things. I mean, how can you not? Cake tasting? ALL over it. Catering tasting? Ours was delightful. Sampling dim sum throughout Chicago to nail down our post-wedding brunch? YASSS. I mean, I’m on a pretty rigid pre-wedding diet now, and at least five of the pounds I’ve lost are directly because of cake tastings, but it was totally worth it!

4. Spending time with loved ones. We had a bachelorette party that was the PERFECT bonding trip for me, my sister, and my BFF (not that we all aren’t close already). And they got to meet my LA besties. And we’ve been traveling to Chicago a bit more, so extra time with family. And you know what? It’s been awesome. I was feeling a little isolated living 1,500 miles away from my folks, so it’s been great finding more time to connect.

A shot from the party: not the most flattering, but who cares when you’re having a BLAST!

5. Focusing more on our relationship. Mr. W and I are committed to starting our marriage on really solid footing, so we’ve been spending a lot of time sitting down and figuring out how we want our relationship to go—boring shit like finances, living arrangements, career goals, etc. It hasn’t all been fun, and it’s lead to more than one argument, but every discussion we have helps firm up our relationship foundation—and it’s refreshing to talk about stuff rather than take it for granted.

The site of many of our relationship talks: our local tiki bar. Why not, right?

Clearly, even if you’re overwhelmed with wedding planning or the idea of being “OMG the bride” there’s a lot to love about the process. It just may not be the things you expect it to be. I mean, dress shopping? Meh. A two hour discussion about finances, retirement goals, and where our 401ks are at? AWESOME!

comments

Haha! I could have written this post!! Getting RSVPs was an unexpected super-fun part for us, too. Now I feel bad for never doodling on any myself! It literally didn’t occur to me that that was allowed. lol